The watchword is "surveillance," and it is the
(Continuedfrom page 15) unclassified version
of which was released in 2000, for the first time
labeled global disease as a national security
threat, elevating microbes to a level of political
concern usually accorded nuclear warheads.
Also in 2000, the United Nations Security
Council convened a meeting to discuss the
security threat of AIDS, the council's first
meeting devoted to a health issue.
It's an important, even revolutionary, insight:
Nations can enhance their own stability by
taming diseases abroad. The catch is that
public health improvements are difficult to
implement in countries that are politically
unstable or at war, as many of the world's most
plague-afflicted nations are today.
The tale of Bonzali Katanga offers a tragic
case in point. Katanga was the sole public
health officer for the town of Durba in civil
war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo in
1998. The country's central government was
a shambles, and Katanga's district was held by
rebels. When men started dying by the dozens
in the local gold mine, Katanga suspected
Ebola or perhaps Marburg disease, caused by
a similarly destructive virus. For months he
tried desperately to raise the alarm, sending
repeated radio messages to his superiors in the
provincial capital of Kisangani while doing
what little he could for his hemorrhaging
patients. It took more than four months for
officials to respond, and by the time they got
there, Katanga was dead too. They found a vial
of his blood in the refrigerator, which he had
left to aid their investigation. Researchers later
determined that it contained the deadly Mar
burg virus, which he'd contracted from the
miners he had cared for until his own demise.
Katanga's death was the worst kind of proof
that political instability and disease go hand in
hand, an American doctor who knew him said
later, shaking with anger and grief. "I consider
him a casualty of war."
Ironically, Bonzali Katanga was doing
exactly what global health officials say needs
to be done if emerging diseases are to be con
trolled. He was on the ground, keeping his eyes
open, and alerting authorities to anything that
appeared to be infectiously amiss.
The watchword is "surveillance," and it is